“I don’t know. Maybe because you didn’t bring enough food.”
He stopped and stared, and, sure enough, she had almost all of it on her plate. And for some reason it struck him as completely funny. When he stopped laughing, he said. “Oh my God. You know what? I didn’t even think about it. It was my leftovers. So I just grabbed it and came over.”
“And it was leftovers, and it was good,” she mumbled, as she shoveled another forkful in her mouth. “But now I feel like shit because I’m eating your food, and there isn’t enough for you.”
“Do you have anything here to eat?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “Nothing up to your standards.”
At that, he turned to her, glared. “Enough of that BS too.”
She shrugged. “I’m serious. I mean, there’s like bread and peanut butter.”
“You got any jam?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow. She stopped and stared, and he shrugged. “You think I didn’t have peanut butter to get through the days when I was young? Lot of times I was damn happy to have peanut butter. And sometimes there was no bread to go with it.”
She winced at that.
“Yeah, not all of us had the silver spoon.”
“We haven’t talked about our history much, have we?” she said quietly.
“Who wants to?” He walked into the kitchen, found a loaf of bread, the butter, and the peanut butter. Then took it all back to the kitchen table and sat down. She looked at him in astonishment, as he slathered four slices of bread with both butter and peanut butter.
“Do you want honey with that?” She continued to eat the leftovers he had brought.
He stopped, looked at his sandwiches. “I don’t. I really like peanut butter,” he said. And he put two pieces together, even though he had peanut-buttered both sides, then started to munch.
“And you’re right about talking about our pasts. Who the hell wants to?”
“Exactly, they’re over, and that’s the way they’ll stay.”
She smiled, and then her smile dropped.
“Now what?”
“The problem is, that young woman’s life is over too. She can’t ever add to it. She can’t ever have another day of fulfilling a dream or… or doing something, anything that she wanted to do… all because of this guy.”
“So get angry. I don’t have a problem with that. Get angry, but get angry at the right person, not me.”
She looked at him in surprise. “I’m not angry at you.”
“Good, then don’t go trying to break up with me.”
She stared at him. Her lips quirked. “Is that what the food is for?”
“Is it working?” He checked her out, with interest.
She rolled her eyes at him. “You bring me leftover pasta, meatballs, and whatever else this is, including the garlic bread. I eat it all without a thought, and you’re sitting there eating peanut butter.”
“Right, and there’s only one damn reason why I’m here and tolerating that,” he said in a deadpan voice.
She leaned forward. “I know why too.”
His eyebrows shot up. “And why is that?”
She grinned. “Because it’s absolutely great fucking sex right afterward.”
He had to admit her words shocked him, but what she did next sent delighted thrills up and down his body. She had crawled across the table they shared, grabbed him by the tie, stood him up on his feet, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him until he felt it everywhere.